[Oceanic815]

For our 02 Escape, we picked up in early 2012 a set of new Goodyear Wrangler Silent Armor tires in size LT235/70/16 and had them siped at America's tire [we refuse to frequent Les Schwab despite being less than 20 miles from their HQ... $80 for changing from winter to summer tires or back?!? Ridiculous!]. We chose the LT due to the stiffer sidewall and the ability to air them up higher than the passenger version.

This past summer we had a 4" screw end up in the sidewall near the tread, which necessitated replacement of one of the tires under the roadhazard warranty from America's tire. The replacement Silent Armor tire we did not have siped, as they did not mention it at the time and we didn't think of it.

The new tire went on the back and there is no noticeable performance/grip difference any time of the year vs. the other three which were siped.

When the set of Silent Armor tires were new we lost about 1mpg vs. the Uniroyal all-season tires we had on it before, most likely due to tire weight and tread block design. The Uniroyals were not siped and seemed to wear out quickly even though both the Uniroyals and Goodyears were both rated for the same mileage and our driving style and daily routes did not change. Three of the four Silent Armors are siped and do not seem to be wearing unnecessarily fast.

Does siping do any good? I'm not a tire pro so I can't answer with accuracy; however, by eyeballing and by the seat-of-the-pants observation the siped tires seem to be lasting longer [and they better at $180/tire!]. We'll see if the one non-siped Silent Armor tire catches up to the rest of the tires on wear in another year or so.